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Five Songs to Listen as You Write Short Stories

As you create your platform and ensure your writing foundation is strong, it’s important to find places to be published. Short stories are a great way to get some experience, make some mistakes, and most importantly be seen in the writing community. It’s a frightening step, as it takes you from writing alone, and having a few writing buddies critique it, to having something exposed to any agent, editor, publisher, and reader…forever.

So now that you’re all relaxed and ready to submit, here are five songs to listen to as you write and write away.

1) There are few songs that have such a narrative story to tell as This Will Destroy You’s “The Mighty Rio Grande.” It won’t be the first time I’ve spoken about this song, but as you listen, the song actually has separated acts and can inspire any number of emotions or worlds to explore.

2) Looking for a little horrific inspiration? Look no further than Steve Jablonsky’s score for “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.” Before you judge, listen. I’ve never seen the movie, probably never will unless it’s on Netflix or something. However, it’s a great score to create an amazing sense of atmosphere.

3) If you want to create a strong swell of emotional, character driven action, Brian Tyler has become a master of bringing out amazing scores in even the worst of movies. While there wasn’t anything wrong with Battle: Los Angeles, I also didn’t see anything that blew me away, except the score. It is fantastic. Check out the soundtrack suite below.

4) If you need something quiet, a little bit of heartbreak, Alexandre Desplat did an amazing job in the score for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two. The song, Severus and Lilly, has a great series of movements from the beginning to end of this 6:09 song. Lily’s Theme is also remarkable, but at 2:28, can get a bit repetitive if you’re writing for the long haul.

5) If you’re unfamiliar with the singer Jonsi, he’s the lead singer of the band Sigur Ros. His solo album, Go, has a ton of great songs. The song, Grow Till Tall, has remarkable sections to the music, and grows from a quiet piece to an explosive finale.

So there you have it. Write. Submit. Get the ball rolling and don’t look back. It will be daunting waiting for the responses to your submissions; however, it gives you a sense of what querying agents and the process actually looks like.

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